Reporting: Writings From The New Yorker

Reporting: Writings From The New Yorker

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Reporting: Writings From The New Yorker

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Knopf

When the new journalists of the '60s and '70s radically expanded the parameters of what could be considered journalism, their innovations aided most journalists, not just fellow travelers or like-minded souls. A prominent figure in the literary establishment, buttoned-up New Yorker editor David Remnick is about as far removed from the Hunter S. Thompson journalist-as-charismatic-crazy archetype as possible, but in his fine new collection Reporting,he nevertheless benefits from the literary freedoms Thompson and his peers helped win long ago.

The title of Remnick's new book seems to direct readers away from the writer and toward the writing. It's all about story, not the storyteller. But over the course of Reporting,Remnick serves as a subtle, elegant, understated presence in his pieces; like his sophisticated prose style, that presence is witty and assured without calling undue attention to itself. Mostly, Remnick asserts his personality through his choice of subjects. His obsessions are far-ranging, but here they center on Russia, Israel, boxing, writers, and towering icons living in the aftermath of history. An almost preternaturally versatile writer, Remnick is equally adept at chronicling the never-ending train wreck of Mike Tyson's career, and the life of cantankerous Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Vermont and Russia.